第30章

`Well!' said Mrs Glegg, rising from her chair, `I don't know whether you think it's a fine thing to sit by and hear me swore at, Mr Glegg, but I'm not going to stay a minute longer in this house.You can stay behind, and come home with the gig, and I'll walk home.'

`Dear heart, dear heart!' said Mr Glegg in a melancholy tone, as he followed his wife out of the room.

`Mr Tulliver, how could you talk so?' said Mrs Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes.

`Let her go,' said Mr Tulliver, too hot to be damped by any amount of tears.`Let her go, and the sooner the better: she won't be trying to domineer over me again in a hurry.'

`Sister Pullet,' said Mrs Tulliver, helplessly, `do you think it 'ud be any use for you to go after her and try to pacify her?'

`Better not, better not,' said Mr Deane.`You'll make it up another day.'

`Then, sisters, shall we go and look at the children?' said Mrs Tulliver, drying her eyes.

No proposition could have been more seasonable.Mr Tulliver felt very much as if the air had been cleared of obstrusive flies now the women were out of the room.There were few things he liked better than a chat with Mr Deane, whose close application to business allowed the pleasure very rarely.Mr Deane, he considered, was the `knowingest' man of his acquaintance and he had besides a ready causticity of tongue which made an agreeable supplement to Mr Tulliver's own tendency that way, which had remained in rather an embryonic or inarticulate condition.And now the women were gone, they could carry on their serious talk without frivolous interruption.

They could exchange their views concerning the Duke of Wellington whose conduct in the Catholic Question had thrown such an entirely new light on his character, and speak slightingly of his conduct at the battle of Waterloo, which he would never have won if there hadn't been a great many Englishmen at his back, not to speak of Blucher and the Prussians, who, as Mr Tulliver had heard from a person of particular knowledge in that matter, had come up in the very nick of time; though here there was a slight dissidence, Mr Deane remarking that he was not disposed to give much credit to the Prussians, the build of their vessels together with the unsatisfactory character of transactions in Dantzic beer, inclining him to form rather a low view of Prussian pluck generally.Rather beaten on this ground, Mr Tulliver proceeded to express his fears that the country could never again be what it used to be; but Mr Deane, attached to a firm of which the returns were on the increase, naturally took a more lively view of the present, and had some details to give concerning the state of the imports especially in hides and spelter, which soothed Mr Tulliver's imagination by throwing into more distant perspective the period when the country would become utterly the prey of Papists and Radicals and there would be no more chance for honest men.

Uncle Pullet sat by and listened with twinkling eyes to these high matters.

He didn't understand politics himself - thought they were a natural gift - but by what he could make out, this Duke of Wellington was no better than he should be.